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💬 The Wrap

So it happened. Apple released the first iOS 10.2 developer beta today which includes full Unicode 9 emoji support. This means iPhone users will see the facepalm, shrug, fingers crossed, avocado and fox face arrive on phones in the coming weeks.

This same update also adds emoji professions, and a complete design overhaul which looks more 3D than ever. Take a look at what's on the way, or if you are an Apple developer, just update your phone to see them.

Some may know that those missing character squares in a font are referred to as Tofu, or that the Android emoji font is called "Noto Color Emoji". I had no idea Noto stands for "No Tofu". The project is much bigger than emoji alone.

We launched Botmoji on Twitter a few months ago, and she's responded to nearly 10,000 tweets now. If you haven't yet, give her a shot! (side note: not long after this, Botmoji went offline due to the DDoS that affected much of the internet. Botmoji went human-powered that day)

A number of court cases have now involved emoji in communications. Prediction for the Supreme Court emoji appearance? “It probably won’t be a happy emoji. The gun emoji is my guess, with the bomb and knife emojis following close behind.”

Does emoji reflect how we see society? This interview with Paul Hunt looks at a number of the issues surrounding emoji and how it represents gender. Apparently there is also "a slight gender bias to viewing all emoji as being masculine by default".

🤗 Lastly

Thanks as always for keeping this email coming to you each month. I really appreciate it! If any of you are attending EmojiCon this weekend, I will be there giving a talk on the Saturday so come say hello afterward.